The natural gas transmission industry and chemical process industries use a large number of large-bore, 2-stroke and 4-stroke natural gas engines for compressing natural gas. For example, industries use these engines for such purposes as maintaining pressure in the extensive network of natural gas pipelines that supply residential housing and commercial businesses. The network of natural gas pipelines typically operate at high pressures in the neighborhood of between 500 psig and 1000 psig.
These large-bore, natural gas engines may be powered by a small portion of the natural gas passing through the pipelines. However, before being injected into the engine, the pressure of the gas is significantly and substantially reduced. Gaseous fuel is typically injected into these cylinders at low pressures (for example, 15 psig to 60 psig by mechanically actuated fuel injectors, such as that disclosed in Fisher, U.S. Pat. No. 4,365,756. The problem with low pressure injection is that the fuel pressure provides little kinetic energy with which to induce cylinder charge mixing. There is ample evidence that the fuel and air in these large bore engines are not well mixed and as such exhibit poor combustion stability, high misfire rates and significant cycle-to-cycle variations in peak pressure. As a result, these engines are not efficient and also are environmentally detrimental, contributing to approximately 10% of the total NO.sub.x production in the United States from stationary combustion sources according to estimates.
The concept of using high pressure fuel delivery to enhance fuel mixing in these engines has been proposed as a means to improve efficiency and environmental emissions from these engines. However, retrofitting existing engines provides a significant hurdle because these engines are manufactured by different companies and also vary in size. Moreover, injecting fuel at high pressure as opposed to low pressure requires the fuel injectors to operate under extremely high operating pressures which in turn greatly increases stresses and powering requirements for opening and closing the valves. A key requirement for any proposed high pressure fuel injector is reliability. These large-bore, natural gas engines typically run continuously over long time periods, meaning that any suitable fuel injector must be capable of reliably enduring very long operating cycles of the engine. It is desirable for example, that the fuel injectors reliably operate over several hundred million continuous cycles of the engine (about one to two years before replacement). As such, a valve must achieve reliability over this long time period or operating interval. Fuel injectors of the prior art such as that disclosed in Fisher, U.S. Pat. No. 4,365,756 are not capable of reliably sealing and accurately controlling the injection of gas at high pressure. Only recently have economic and environmental pressures on the gas industry resulted in justification for advances in fuel injection technology. For at least the foregoing reasons, commercial large bore 2-stroke and 4-stroke natural gas engines continue to be fueled at low pressure by conventional low pressure fuel injectors.